Probability fractions arise from our knowledge and from our ignorance.
Knowledge Quotes
Francis Bacon, Shakespeare, John Locke, Samuel Johnson and Einstein are all near the top, which gives the page its character: mostly people who thought about how we know things, rather than about how to feel clever. Johnson gives the most useful single line, in Boswell’s Life (1791): “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” Wittgenstein, in On Certainty (1969), says that knowledge is in the end based on acknowledgement.
A lot of the quotes people look for here are flagged. “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing” is credited to Socrates; see the note on the Wisdom page. “Contempt prior to investigation” is credited to Einstein, and a line about putting the Lord at every turn in the refuge of a miracle is credited to Galileo.
All my foundation in virtue was no other than a total ignorance of vice.
Did ignorance save his freedom, or merely his illusion of freedom?
“Maybe you were better off not knowing.”
“Ignorance is not bliss.”
“The scope of your ignorance, Peter,” said Seawoll, “is truly frightening.”
Ignorance breeds fear. Tell people the truth. Trust them to keep their heads.
To fight an enemy properly, you have to know what they are. Ignorance is defeat.
"Misunderstanding of the present is the inevitable consequence of ignorance of the past.
Caprice is a hallucination. There is no caprice, only ignorance.